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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29416425">ball of thread</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/findingkairos'>findingkairos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>to you I gift the end of things [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gift Fic, Platonic Relationships, Vampire AU, dead body in the room but what did you expect they're vampires</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:54:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29416425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/findingkairos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is this what the rest of eternity looks like?”</p><p>“What?” Techno looks up. He hasn’t cleaned off the blood from his shirt yet, and there are novels in the lines creasing at his eyes, entire stories in the pale hands that cradle his weapons. He doesn’t even glance at the body in the room, doesn’t drool, doesn’t even seem to notice it.</p><p>How he’s doing it, Phil doesn’t know.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Technoblade (Dream SMP) &amp; Philza Minecraft (Dream SMP)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>to you I gift the end of things [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2104326</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>390</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ball of thread</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mascaboom/gifts">Mascaboom</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Flash fic, for Masca.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Is this what the rest of eternity looks like?”</p><p>“What?” Techno looks up. He hasn’t cleaned off the blood from his shirt yet, and there are novels in the lines creasing at his eyes, entire stories in the pale hands that cradle his weapons. He doesn’t even glance at the body in the room, doesn’t drool, doesn’t even seem to notice it.</p><p>How he’s doing it, Phil doesn’t know. To him it smells like steak, fresh cooked—or new bread, just broken and steaming soft—or the clean mist of a well cooked meal with plenty of spices and garlic—</p><p>His stomach growls. His teeth are sharper than he remembers it being. He runs his own tongue over his teeth and has to swallow, hard.</p><p>Phil gets his head back in the game. Techno’s somehow gotten in front of him while he’d been zoned out and grappling with the instinct to kneel down and feed, and his hands are on Phil’s elbows and his forehead’s pressed against Phil’s.</p><p>“I’m not sorry,” Techno says, when he realizes that Phil’s paying attention to him again. “But I am—aggrieved. That you’ll have to learn how to—cope.”</p><p>“Is it coping, though?” Phil leans forward, lets Techno take that weight. He’s still as unnaturally, unnervingly strong as Phil’s always remembered it being, but there’s an extra edge of—longing, to that contact. There’s a ball of thread in his chest and its end leads back to Techno, and it’s everything that he’s ever wanted, the certainty that where the wanderer goes, he can follow—</p><p>But he really could do without the watering mouth. He really could.</p><p>“You learned how to do it.” Techno’s famous for it in those midnight circles. He doesn’t feed from living things, but he isn’t weakened and he still walks in the sun. “And you’re still living life. Wouldn’t call that coping, mate.”</p><p>And it isn’t Techno’s fault he’s different now, anyway. Phil could blame him but with the warmth in his chest and the lingering presence in the back of his mind, the heavy weight of a blanket and the soft underdown that lines it, it’s hard to stay mad. Even more so when he doesn’t want to be angry in the first place.</p><p>“I’ll teach you,” Techno says, and he says it like a vow: quiet, solemn. He breathes out, and Phil breathes in, and here they are, caught in the moment with a cooling body in the room. “You won’t be alone.”</p><p>“Wasn’t ever gonna be alone,” Phil corrects, because he’d known that even before he’d been turned in order to save his own life. There’s a bond and a weight and a responsibility that the rest of the community will hunt them down for, but right here, right now—there’s just truth. “Told you I’m in it for the long haul, didn’t I?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Phil breathes out, and Techno breathes it in. “You did.”</p>
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